


Fanning the Flames

by WickedIntentions



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Alchemist!Rhys, Alternate Universe - Assault on Dragon Keep, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asshole!Jack, Body Possession, Forced Sensations, Handsome Sorcerer!Jack, Heavy Plot Dotted with Kinky Smut, Hero Worship, Humiliation, Light Necrophilia, M/M, Magical Bondage, Sex Magic, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:44:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7711918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedIntentions/pseuds/WickedIntentions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Handsome Sorcerer is an all-powerful, tyrannical being who annihilates all who dare to challenge him.<br/>Rhys is a tavern cook who secretly dabbles in the forbidden art of alchemy in the little town of Flamerock Refuge.</p><p>
  <i>("In-over-his-head" accurately describes the young alchemist.)</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And Then There Was One

* * *

 

_“All the champions, all the skill and talent, all the years of training—and you, a worthless friggin’ **nobody** , arrive to face me.”_

 

* * *

 

_“Fame and riches untold could be yours—yes, **yours** —if you think you’re mighty enough to face the terrifying demon who sits high in his tower of oppression and threatens the peace of our quaint little valley! We from all nations and walks of life on Pandora shall band together and vanquish him from existence!”_

The sudden announcement on a sleepy summer day in Flamerock Refuge was what first drew the attention of a young man by the name of Rhys, as the sheer ridiculousness of it had him stifling a chuckle and asking where he could sign up. Fame and riches untold sounded rather attractive to him, after all, and whether he actually ended up leaving his home on an insane quest or not, it could provide some much-needed entertainment.

He lived a modest life as the sole cook for the local tavern, and he swore again and again that it wasn’t entirely his fault that the patrons were continuing to contract the newest strain of the deadly fungi flu. With his reputation teetering precariously on the line, all he could do was defend himself against the accusations which suggested he was plotting to poison the town for unknown but most definitely nefarious purposes.

“Seriously, what do you want from me? When you expect me to collect ingredients from the forest, you’re gonna find an enchanted mushroom in your soup now and again!” he would argue but to no avail. In the end, he had just decided to save his breath and avoid the delicious red-capped fungi springing up plentifully near a colony of mischievous pixies, substituting them instead with bland brown-capped ones growing just outside the stone-stacked walls of the town. It wasn’t great, but the trade-off was that he was able to keep his citizenship. Being disgruntled when his tips were lacking real substance was the small price to pay.

Besides cooking in the evenings for a town of people who were notoriously known for being way too suspicious in a world full of oddities with no possible explanation—“ _Listen, it’s better just to accept what is… but, heh, you’re not listening to me, are you? …Yes, yes, Miss Moxxi looks beautiful today. I agree.”_ —he enjoyed a few hobbies. For example, during the full moon, he swathed himself in a hooded cloak and stole away under the cover of darkness, traveling until he was out of breath in order to collect a few precious samples of a flower that must be harvested in a period of mere seconds. With each new month, he came closer and closer to figuring out the secret to immortality, infinite wealth, and thus, ultimate happiness. It was just a little side project of his; no big deal.

 _Alchemy_ —it was as close to magic as he, a regular human being, would be able to come, to his knowledge. He humbly liked to think of it as an artificial, futuristic kind of magic that promised godhood to those who weren’t afraid of selling their soul and perhaps a limb or two in the process. You could always make new ones, right? It was a worthy sacrifice in the long run, even if he had yet to find another person who agreed with that sentiment.

Despite his dark interests, Rhys was a good-natured person, someone who loved to laugh and be around other people, but the downside was that his practice demanded he keep mostly to himself. Since the punishment for magic and alchemy was banishment and certain death by mythical beasts, he had resigned himself to his fate, remaining confident that, with time, his fellow townspeople would come to realize that they all had the capacity to do powerful things and would begin to accept the art of alchemy into their norm.

But for now, the simple folk were content with tradition, which dictated that they solve their problems with good, old-fashioned violence.

The Pandoran sun was stifling as usual, beating down unforgivingly on the restless crowd knit tightly around the spectacle in the center of the town. There was a nose-wrinkling scent of body odor permeating the air as the Flamerock citizens flicked sweat from their brows and lifted themselves up onto their tip-toes to gain a better vantage point, hands cupped over their eyes against the glare of the afternoon sunlight.

To accompany the curious announcement that day, the impoverished town found itself host to a gathering of the most ostentatious characters they had ever seen, which was saying something because foolish adventurers passed through frequently to access the horrors beyond the walls at a chance for glory. The strangers identified themselves as a handpicked group from every far corner of the land, and this was their final stop before they would undertake their daunting hunt.

Rhys was the only person in Flamerock Refuge who approached the group, and he introduced himself.

“And what is your skill, friend?” an exquisitely armored knight boomed, clapping a hand down on his tunic-clad shoulder. The giant of a man was proudly bearing insignia of the nearby kingdom, which boasted enormous wealth and prosperity, as well as a long line of unblemished royal family and a plethora of breathtaking, golden-haired daughters with the loveliest of singing voices—versus theirs, which had a population measured with two digits and a reigning monarch as a diamond pony.

 _I can command nature and bend it to my will_. Rhys smiled wryly to himself. “I can cook a mean soup,” he instead declared for all to hear, impressively holding up against the metal bearing down on his skinny form. His joke earned him a chorus of laughter for his trouble, and he considered it a win, even if he did catch a cheeky bastard scoffing, “That’s debatable.”

Because— _come on_. Nobody would have taken his answer seriously. He couldn’t properly wield a weapon, and his healing capabilities were limited to tiny cuts and burns. If he were sure of anything, he knew the power of laughter stood little ground against a rampaging orc with thick, hot ropes of drool dribbling from its gaping maw.

“There is always a job to be done, no matter how big or small, and we could always use a servant boy to handle the dirty work!” Sir Knight responded, and as a result, Rhys stood thoroughly corrected. “What do you think, servant boy?”

“Oh,” was all Rhys had time to say before the knight took his weak response as verbal consent and ushered him forward, introducing him to the newcomers whose impressive credentials heralded them. The group consisted of knights from the same prestigious order, though from different factions; a few lone-wolf rogues who could expertly wield poison-tipped blades and slit throats without ever being detected; and dead-shot archers from a secret guild up in the mist-shrouded mountains— _“The name is none of your concern.”_ Encouraged by the raw skill on display, he had begun to relax in the hunting party’s company and dared to think that maybe the quest wasn’t as insane as he thought, as unhappy as he was with his demeaning title of ‘servant boy.’

Though, to be fair, he had earned it with his smart-assery, he acknowledged, and decided to quietly add it to his resume.

“Unfortunately, the medic decided he would rather… well, **not** come with us. Something about an outbreak of fungi flu.”

Biting down on his lower lip and idly recalling a phrase he had heard once—‘shooting yourself in the foot’—Rhys grew uneasy with the new information, especially when his new companions nodded sagely, as if such an oversight was completely excusable. He mulled it over for mere moments, nervously waiting for the punch line, which regrettably never arrived. Feeling strangely silly as he did, he wondered aloud, “…Don’t we, uh, need a medic?”

And that was an hour previous, before the group had departed from the little town with the sun hanging high above, and the band of overconfident warriors had insisted they didn’t, in fact, need a medic, that their power was immense and unmatched and could thoroughly conquer anything the journey had to offer before any significant injury could take place. Their formation had been simple but effective. The rogues could sneak ahead and scout out the area for danger, sending a messenger bird back to beckon the group forward. The archers would be able to plant arrows in the skull of any creature that dared to cross their path, before such creature even knew they were approaching. The knights provided a solid wall of tempered steel and reinforced chainmail, should anything somehow slip past their defenses unnoticed.

As for Rhys—well, he currently had an admirably firm hold on the rucksacks piled over his shoulder, growing steadily wearier under the combined weight and heat, trailing a few feet behind the sturdy blockade of knights, whose boots kicked up thick clouds of dust while they marched forward in a noisy clatter. The archers were stationed behind him, alert and silent in their lightweight garments, and the rogues were completely unseen among the thick foliage of the forest.

His ears perked up when the solemn quiet that had descended upon them was broken once again by a particularly chatty knight, who, while the most greenhorn of the bunch, had seen more than his fair share of combat, which was infinitely more than Rhys could say for himself.

“So, tell me… this demon we’re after, what’s his killstreak looking like? If it’s anything like our last mark, I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Hundreds, last I checked. But probably nearing a thousand by now.” There was a thick syrup of pride and testosterone in the answering voice. “Oh, yeah, gonna be a **real** challenge.”

That was precisely when Rhys realized he didn’t actually know anything about what it was that they were hunting and began to question his life choices. He trotted forward to catch up with the bulky, armored men. “Hey, guys, who’s this demon you keep mentioning? I know I probably should’ve asked, you know, before we left, but it totally slipped my mind.”

When the answer to his question was given and the two ominous words registered in his mind, Rhys froze in place long enough to watch the archers fluidly sidestep around him before he regained control of his feet and was able to slip back into rank. Was it too late to turn around and flee to Flamerock Refuge with his tail between his legs? Surely the man-eating spiders they had killed couldn’t repopulate fast enough that he would risk encountering them on the way back. But the encroaching sunset nipping at their heels was certainly more terrifying when he considered the prospect of returning home by himself in pitch blackness. The most he had traveled was just shy of the Immortal Woods where the undead stalked through haunted ruins, and they had successfully traversed it some time ago.

“The kingdoms came together and decided that it was time to organize an experienced outfit to take the Handsome Sorcerer down after one of his dragons razed half the countryside and caused produce prices to skyrocket.”

“Probably gonna need that medic—or ten,” Rhys added blankly. He knew exactly who the Handsome Sorcerer was; in fact, there were few in the world that could say they didn’t know who the infamous mage was. “Yuuup. We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die.”

“ _You_ might die, but I won’t,” the chatty greenhorn responded confidently. “I found this anti-magic powder in the bazaar before I left, at a decent price, too! A few pinches over my head, a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, then I recite the activation words. I’m gonna be freakin’ **immune** to anything he throws at us.”

“That’s a scam,” the young man muttered, rolling his eyes skyward in time to watch a startled flock of birds take flight suddenly in the distance. His words went unnoticed because, simultaneously, an argument broke out between the men when it was discovered that there was only enough of the ‘immunity’ powder for two of them, if they were careful with the portions. He rubbed a hand over his face and stared glumly off into the diminishing tree line as they neared the mountains, an incomprehensible garble of verbal sparring buzzing incessantly in his ears and plummeting his already sour mood.

At this point, the rogues were completely unnecessary because their enemies could no doubt hear their bickering from miles away.

…And Rhys would like to point out that it _wasn’t his freaking fault_ that this was clearly the case, that he did nothing to instigate it. He was merely an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a squabble over dandruff flakes, and it was all he could do to try to remind them that stealth was a key factor to their quest’s success. His advice was again and again drowned out in the commotion.

They never stood a chance once they descended into the putrid depths of the Mines of Avarice, home to the bloodthirsty orcs, who were immune even to the charm of the Handsome Sorcerer. The warriors were distracted, heated. Comradery was torn apart and made them weak as a team.

So when the orcs leaped from the shadows with axes and daggers, more than half of the group fell quickly in the initial attack, though the remainder fought back valiantly and just barely managed to defeat them.

Rhys had fallen back just far enough to avoid the conflict, pressing himself as small as he could against the wall.

The survivors, consisting of a few knights and archers and a single rogue—and their trusty servant boy—took a moment to mourn their dead and pocket any interesting loot before trudging onward with heavy hearts.

In no time at all, they came upon their next obstacle, though it thankfully wasn’t anything that resulted in more hardship. The significantly more intelligent race of dwarves residing in the mines were, for the most part, uninterested in their affairs as long as they left their kingdom peacefully, which they wisely did, and they had picked their way through a series of puzzles to gain entry into the inner sanctum of the Mines of Avarice, broken but not defeated, returning to the surface on the other side of the mountains and tilting their heads all the way back to behold the final obstacle before them: the keep itself. They had dared to hope it would be easier than what they had endured already.

Then the orcs attacked again.

Rhys was barely able to fling himself in the brush and hide as a quivering mess, listening to the guttural battle cries in a harsh Orcish dialect; the swing of jagged blades connecting with flesh and bone and cleaving their way through; and the piercing screams of the final few survivors as they met their untimely demise. He was quickly forgotten in the carnage.

In the end, the lonely, traumatized alchemist was the only one to arrive at the castle of the Handsome Sorcerer, feeling as if he had aged a decade before night had fallen, able to slip up the countless flights of grand, winding staircases unnoticed because he had thankfully spied a sprig of honeyleaf with its delicately curled golden leaves within his hiding spot, crushed it with a smooth stone, and added it and a pinch of soil to a sealed flask he had kept in his pocket for an emergency. Within the flask already was a mixture of spring water and pixie dust, one of his standard bases for just such a situation. After it had been corked and shaken together, he ingested the hastily prepared invisibility potion with practiced tolerance and allowed it some time to take effect.

The spiders were immune to it, he knew, as they were adept at seeing through flimsy attempts at invisibility. As there were spiders hiding all over the mines, there was a miniscule chance of him surviving the journey back—and regardless, the potion wouldn’t last nearly long enough to see him home safely. He would likely find himself wandering through a basilisk nest when it wore off, and his death would be excruciatingly painful and slow.

His only choice was to continue onward and arrive at his late party’s destination, if only to add meaning to their gruesome deaths, even if there was no hope that he could ever bring down the Handsome Sorcerer by himself or even with a hundred knights at his back. Truthfully, by this point, he couldn’t say he particularly liked any one of his deceased companions, but it was a pointless grudge that wasn’t strong enough to transcend through to the afterlife. He owed them and himself the effort, at the very least, and he would die a glorious death, locked in epic battle with the most terrifying mage to walk Pandora.

There were beguiled knights and wizards—servants of the Handsome Sorcerer—patrolling the sunlit splendor of the castle’s exterior, but it was a simple thing to hold his breath and wait for the right moments to dart past them undetected. Up and up he continued with the setting sun warming his back, and his breath grew more and more ragged with each wretched staircase that lay ahead in his path and tested his endurance. More than once, he debated just giving up and accepting the fate he should have shared with the rest of his group, but something in him—something that had driven him straight into the arms of the harsh mistress that was alchemy—had him continuing onward and upwards determinedly.

He hoped he was close to the end when he dropped down onto a bridge that led to an enormous spire. But before he could clear more than a few feet, a sudden deafening roar above him tore right into his core, and hot, acidic fear poured into his chest, closing painfully around his lungs. He could only manage a single quick, harsh inhale, his head swinging around towards the source of the sound, before all of his breath was taken from him.

Crimson scales shimmering like liquid fire in the sunset—endless rows of teeth heralding a forked tongue that slithered out and scented the air—a swirl of impending white-hot fire through its translucent, armored belly. The enormous dragon came to a stop next to the bridge and beat its mighty wings to keep itself afloat in the air. It dipped its head and ripped its jaws apart in a snarl.

It was then that Rhys felt a telltale tingle at the back of his neck and knew that his temporary invisibility had worn off—not that it even mattered. Out of all the creatures that co-populated Pandora, dragons were the most intelligent and magical, unaffected by all forms of deception and trickery. He knew he was completely screwed and would die a well-charred death, and his legacy would limp on as a suspicious little stain on the ground.

 _Not like this_ , he begged the heavens. _Oh, god, not like this._

He didn’t have the ingredients or the time to prepare a proper salve to protect against the dragon’s fiery breath, as he was completely ill-prepared for what quickly became the worst day of his life. He should have bathed in the stuff, but he hadn’t known that dragons were in the mix—that the Handsome Sorcerer himself was the target.

Speaking of the Handsome Sorcerer—there was someone daringly riding the dragon. He didn’t even have to know exactly what the infamous mage looked like to know that, without a doubt, the dragon’s rider was the very reason he was never going to be able to see another day.

“Irony!” the figure atop the magnificent flying beast boomed with pure mirth. “Oh, _shit_ , the irony! I haven’t laughed this hard in years!”

Rhys could only stare dumbly in open-mouthed awe as the Handsome Sorcerer leaped from his terrifying perch, dropping to the bridge before him. When he stood to his full height, he twirled a jeweled staff as tall as he was deftly in one hand. Blue-gray robes hung loosely from his tall, broad frame, and a wide-brimmed, pointed hat of the same color neatly topped his head. Cast in shadow, there were only two visible features of his face—otherworldly, glowing blue eyes that pierced through Rhys’s very soul.

“All the champions, all the skill and talent, all the years of training—and you, a worthless friggin’ **nobody** , arrive to face me.” The mage cackled with obnoxious, uncontrollable laughter, and he hunched over and placed his unoccupied gloved hand on one of his knees, leaning heavily on the staff to keep his balance.

To Rhys’s credit, he held his head high the entire way through, patiently waiting for the Handsome Sorcerer to regain control of himself. Although, his mouth did eventually snap shut, and his lips thinned the slightest bit in annoyance because he knew he had worked harder than he ever had in his twenty-five years of life to make it to this point and was a champion in his own right, even if he didn’t have the pedigree or the professional training.

“All right, enough of that.” He was somewhat breathless from the force of his laughter. “So how do ya want it, kiddo? Fireball, lightning bolt, or maybe some ice shards? Haven’t used ice in a long time—not that I’m tryin’ to influence your decision or nothin’. But seriously, think it over real hard. It’s important.”

The young alchemist could only hold his hands up in front of him like a flimsy shield and try to remain calm. “I-I don’t wanna die.”

“Nobody _wants_ to die, but it’s gotta happen sometime, right? Might as well be now, and I’m even lettin’ ya choose how it happens. You’re being a **little shit** , and you got ten seconds before I feed ya to Smokey.”

Rhys could only assume that Smokey was the dragon, who snapped its jaws menacingly in acknowledgement, staring him down with hungry slitted pupils. His terror intensified as he imagined what it would feel like to be digested whole, and he could no longer pretend to be calm. “W-wait! Maybe I can… convince you to let me live? There must be something— _anything_ —I can do for you!”

“Oh, yeah?” He shrugged, tossing his head with the motion, and his hat miraculously didn’t budge an inch from his head. “Ehh, fine. I’m feelin’ generous today since ya amused the hell outta me. Let’s go, pumpkin. Try me.”

It was a long shot, but Rhys knew that many a people appreciated home-cooked meals. “I can cook for you.”

“Nice try, but nope, not gonna work on me ‘cause I don’t eat,” the Handsome Sorcerer retorted, a sneer audible in his tone. The blue glow of his eyes narrowed dangerously, and he took a step forward, the dark curtain of his robes swishing around his feet as he approached. “Ya know, it’s been a while since I personally killed someone. Usually I let the minions have their fun. I bet your blood is gonna look real pretty stainin’ the stone.”

“I… _I know alchemy!_ ” the young man yelped, the words a foreign tingle on his lips. He had never spoken them aloud before, always fearing the consequences if someone had discovered his secret, but there was little keeping him from doing it now, with his life flashing before his eyes and terror gripping his heart. All he cared about was somehow leaving the castle still alive. “Alchemy—you know? It’s—”

“—I know what alchemy is, ya dumbass.” The robed figure punctuated the sentence by slamming his staff on the stone ground. Despite the harshness of his words, he paused in his advance and eyed Rhys with a contemplative air. “Hmm… All right, I’ll bite. If you’re tellin’ the truth, and you better friggin’ be, maybe you’re not as useless as I thought.”

Rhys was able to breathe a tiny sigh of relief at that.

“But what else do ya got for me to work with?”

“I… um…” Rhys struggled for something redeeming that the mage could find worth in, but nothing readily came to mind. All he could do was hope he came off slightly charming as he uttered lamely, “I can tell jokes.”

The Handsome Sorcerer stared at him incredulously for a few long moments before he began to snicker, and it was the most terrifying little sound—dark, evil, and ominous. “Oh, cupcake, **you** **are** the joke.”


	2. Two Unlikely Companions

* * *

 

_“First of all, princess, you’re not important enough to be rescued, so get your head outta the clouds right now. Second, I’m not the one who hauled your happy ass up here and made ya stay. And third, those charmin’ sounds that lulled ya to sleep last night? Welp, sorry to disappoint, but they were just the sweet, sweet music of dragons dicking.”_

 

* * *

 

For two days after his brutal introduction into the dangers of blind questing with well-armored strangers with good intentions but terrible foresight, Rhys—remarkably still among the living and extremely proud of that fact—realized he had become a damsel-in-distress, locked away against his will in a dragon-guarded tower among the clouds by an evil sorcerer. It was fairy-tale in quality, something told to the children in Flamerock, except that he didn’t have a rescue party falling over itself trying to bring him home in time for the winter gala, and his furniture didn’t try to talk to him. And to be fair, it wasn’t _completely_ against his will.

Dramatics aside, Rhys originally found himself comfortable to the point that he didn’t fear for his life and was genuinely interested in everything around him. He wasn’t bound to any particular part of the castle and could wander as he pleased because it was apparently a simple thing for a magical ward to be erected to prevent him from entering any areas that were off-limits—even if the Handsome Sorcerer acted like it was the most horribly stressful thing in the world. However, despite the freedom, he was discouraged from venturing out on his own, fearing becoming hopelessly lost and starving to death, after he was told rather flippantly, “Yeah, I had an apprentice. Sent him to answer the door. Huh, I guess I never did find out who the hell it was. …Ehhh, probably wasn’t important.”

Due to his curiosity for all things magic, he had taken refuge in the same spire that the Handsome Sorcerer resided. There was an empty room a few floors beneath where the mage worked, and the furniture and attached washroom suggested that it once was somebody’s bedroom, possibly for a privileged castle servant. There was a cot spread out for his use once he had shaken and patted all the dust from it. Additionally, suspended atop a fire pit, there was an onyx cauldron that could be used for meals after he scrubbed it free of grime. All in all, it was more than he had back at his own home, assuming nobody had looted him in his absence. Of course, losing his furniture was the least of his worries, considering the incriminating books on alchemy and dried ingredients and flasks carefully stored away. Needless to say, he wouldn’t have a home to come back to if his hobby was discovered, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that yet.

The first night in his new room, it had been difficult to fall asleep because—well, to put it simply, it was an unfamiliar place, and Rhys always had trouble finding solace in anything but his own bed. To put it elaborately, the walls seemed to shudder and groan ominously around him like he was within the belly of a giant with gastrointestinal issues. And at some point, said giant entered into a fight to the death with a rather screechy pair of dragons—and it was never-ending and gruesome, and he had trouble figuring out whether the giant or the dragons were winning.

He supposed he could have dreamed the whole thing, but he decided to bring up the noise with his unconventional housemate.

All too soon, day had broken over the horizon, and soft light crept into the room, settling over his weary form from the windowed doors which led to a quaint balcony. Having managed almost no rest, a bleary-eyed Rhys reluctantly dragged himself out of his cot and made a small meal of some dried food he brought with him for the hunt. Hunger subsided, he climbed up several flights of stairs, much to his achy calf muscles’ displeasure, and let himself into the perfectly circular room capping the tower when there was no answer to his polite knocking. The drapes were drawn over the numerous windows, creating a comfortable dim that agreed with his straining eyes, and the lit torches on pillars circling the space flickered in an enthusiastic dance with a light breeze that curled its way around the young alchemist when he stepped in.

Despite the numerous bookshelves and tables adorned with intricate instruments, artifacts, and tomes, despite the mysterious tiny blue flames that hovered in midair at four points in the room, and despite the fact that there was an entirely too cold nip in the air for a late summer morning on Pandora—the focal point of the room was the Handsome Sorcerer, who was leaned back against the central work table, staff resting at his side and a book hovering in front of him. His head was drooping to the side, and the glow of his eyes was strangely absent. He was so still that he could have been mistaken as an eerily lifelike statue.

Rhys approached him, cautious but curious, but when he reached out a hand to touch the robed figure, the Handsome Sorcerer jerked away violently, his eyes igniting suddenly like they had caught fire.

“ _No_ , I wasn’t sleepin’,” was immediately snapped at him.

“I didn’t say you were,” Rhys countered, keeping his tone light, and decided to leave it at that, edging away from him and skimming his way around the table. He thought it best to keep a sturdy piece of furniture between him and the testy mage. A huge part of him knew it would succumb immediately to a nasty spell, but a small part of him appreciated the illusion of comfort it brought. He glanced down at the items strewn across the wooden surface before him with twitchy-fingered interest.

The four blue flames extinguished themselves with a simultaneous low hiss, and the Handsome Sorcerer abandoned the unmarked book on top of a stack of others at his feet, turning to carefully watch the alchemist with those two intense pinpoints of light. There was an understood, ' _Do it and die,'_  hovering tensely between them.

“I think maybe someone showed up to rescue me or something last night,” Rhys informed him to fill the silence, wisely choosing to leave the mage’s personal things alone. “I thought your tower was gonna fall over. God, your dragons were making so much noise.”

“Huh? What the hell are ya—oh. **Oh**.” With an amused snort, he placed his gloved hands down on the table and leaned forward. “First of all, princess, you’re not important enough to be rescued, so get your head outta the clouds right now. Second, I’m not the one who hauled your happy ass up here and made ya stay. And third, those charmin’ sounds that lulled ya to sleep last night? Welp, sorry to disappoint, but they were just the sweet, sweet music of dragons dicking.”

Rhys could confidently say he knew the meaning of all of those words, but it was as if his mind skipped over the last part and had him second-guessing himself. He thought it best to be sure he had heard everything correctly before formulating a response. “Pardon?”

“ _Dra_ —gons _dick_ —ing,” the Handsome Sorcerer enunciated slowly and significantly louder as if Rhys were audibly challenged, “as in one dragon got another dragon pinned up against the wall and fucked the unholy shit out of it like it was life or death. If I had to guess, it was probably Smokey and Buttercup. They’re like friggin’ teenagers, I swear.”

“Yeah… that’s what I thought you said,” he replied weakly.

“Oh, man, it’s _disgusting_ ,” the Handsome Sorcerer enthused gleefully. “And they have the **hugest** dicks I’ve ever seen, and trust me, kiddo, I’ve seen a lot of dicks in my day, mainly ‘cause they’re always breakin’ into my castle like I owe ‘em money.”

“Heh. You’re… you’re talking about me.”

“Nothin’ gets past ya, huh? _Any_ way, rollin’ right along with the fine metaphor I’ve crafted for ya here, personally, it makes me think of a battering ram punchin’ out a huge-ass glory hole. I mean, yeah, don’t get me wrong; it might sound kinda hot in your most twisted, sweaty fantasies late at night, but it’s really not. It’s ugly and loud. Very loud and very ugly.”

“Sick,” was all he could think to say, and he definitely didn’t mean it in the good way. “So… Buttercup is one of your girl-dragons, I guess?”

“Uh, did I say that? ‘Cause no. No, I didn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “ _Dick_ ing. Not _mat_ ing. Shit, you’re havin’ some trouble this mornin’. Now, if it **was** them, they were dicking, and no baby dragons will be brought into this world as a result of it. It was just a dirty rut of shame ‘cause Smokey finds the ladies too temperamental for his taste. He also enjoys it against the wall, bein’ the kinky bitch he is. Takes after his daddy that way, I guess.”

After that, Rhys was shooed away, left to somehow purge the unsavory images from his mind and silently debate whether the Handsome Sorcerer had been flirting with him or not despite the multitude of insults—and why it would matter either way. His only option, shy of sitting outside the mage’s door like an obsessed stalker, was to return to his own quarters and start tidying up his space to pass the time. However, as confident as he had been in the location of his room, he quickly discovered that living with a magical being meant that nothing was ever as it seemed, especially to someone with zero affinity for magic.

Consequently, what should have been a short trip down two flights of marble stairs ended up spitting him out into a long, unfamiliar hallway with no windows or doors, down a ladder at the other end… only to drop straight into the same hallway he started in. His solution, logically, was to open the door he had arrived in, but logic slapped him in the face and cackled, _“Screw you, Rhys!”_ because he was no closer to his room. Instead, he stepped into a domed room made entirely of glass panes lined with decorative iron. There was a well-tended, fragrant garden all around him, and he had a lovely view of the mountains.

To his cautious pleasure, as he wandered around and examined the plants with a practiced eye, he was able to identify most of them. Some, particularly the more violent-looking ones with thorns, thick vines, and angry red bulbous growths, he was not familiar with and frankly didn’t want to approach to examine in greater detail.

After sampling some of the produce, he collected leaves, flowers, and ripe fruit, enough to fill a pouch he kept with him so he would have something to eat later. He needed to bring up the lack of real food with his housemate eventually, if he could ever find his way back, that is.

For now, at least he wouldn’t starve, he acknowledged unhappily, though he would have to eat it dry.

…Sometimes he wondered about his priorities.

Time crawled by, as the dipping sun indicated, and he tried the door a few more times. Each time, he hoped that when he opened it, he would see something familiar behind it but to no avail. Giving up on the frustrating lack of logic, he plopped down on an empty patch of soil, and his exhaustion finally caught up with him. When he jerked awake later, he was on his back with drool tracking down the side of his face, and he was granted with a not-entirely-unwelcome, upside-down view of the Handsome Sorcerer, who had his hands atop his hips.

“Finally found ya. Thought’cha died or somethin’.”

“You don’t have to sound so disappointed,” Rhys mumbled, pushing himself upright and brushing dirt from his clothing to try to look more presentable. “Were you messing with me? I couldn’t find my way back to my room.”

“Nah, wasn’t me. You’d know if it was me. The castle doesn’t like ya, I guess.”

That statement had him feeling a little uneasy. “…The castle? Really?”

“No, not _really_ , dumb-dumb,” he was told sarcastically. “Heh, heh, it’s a frickin’ castle! It doesn’t have feelings. Nah, the doors are enchanted so I can go where I need to be faster, and sometimes when I’m performin’ a real intense spell, they get confused about where they’re supposed to lead.”

“So your castle doesn’t have feelings, but your doors can get confused?” He couldn’t resist. Before his companion could retort, which he appeared ready to do, he questioned hastily, “So what kinda spell was it?”

“Walk your ass through that door. _Now_.”

Well, he tried.

The sight of his bedroom was the highlight of his day. Grimy from his nap in the garden, Rhys was even more eager to bathe, so he dragged himself to the in-ground basin in the adjoining washroom. Unfortunately, he found no way to heat his bathwater, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem for him since he usually took lukewarm baths at home. He blamed being in an enormous castle, but he wanted to feel pampered for once. So up the marble stairs he went, sheepishly knocking on the door in his path. His presence was predictably met with exasperation, his request with annoyance.

“Good god **damn**. Get the hell down there, and I’ll see what I can do.”

He scurried away as commanded, and the instant he stepped into his room, the Handsome Sorcerer appeared in a dramatic swirl of cloth and accompanying puff of smoke. Rhys silently appreciated the grandeur of the appearance but couldn’t help but open his smart mouth once again. “If you can just teleport around wherever you want, why do you need enchanted doors?”

“I guess someone doesn’t want his bath heated, huh? Rather take a fireball straight up the ass?”

He shook his head frantically, zipped his lips, and let his host do his thing.

The mage stalked into his bathroom and retrieved a tiny pouch from his belt. He dug inside of it with one hand. “Dunno why I still have these, but I guess you can use ‘em up instead of botherin' me every time.”

A handful of little shiny stones, glowing bright red in the center and surrounded by smooth, inky blackness, was tossed into the water, which bubbled pleasantly in response. In no time, thick curls of steam wafted up from the water, and it was a beautiful sight. The pouch was carelessly tossed on the ground next to the basin, with no explanation as to the stones' purpose, origin, or name offered.

“Um. Soap?” Rhys spoke up timidly and promptly shriveled under the furious stare he was given. He was conjured up a bar of soap with a pleasing floral scent that he recognized but couldn’t place right away. It wasn’t his personal preference, preferring something more masculine, but he accepted it, nonetheless.

“Lilies,” the Handsome Sorcerer elaborated for his unspoken question with an undertone of icy warning in his voice. “Better get real comfortable with that smell, princess, ‘cause if ya keep makin’ demands like you’re hot shit, it’s gonna follow ya **straight** into the afterlife.”

“Oh, I get it,” he quipped with a nervous chuckle. “‘Cause they put those… on graves. Good—good joke.”

The mage could have sneered at him or rolled his eyes or even smiled, but Rhys wasn’t sure. Once he disappeared as quickly as he had come in a badass puff of smoke, the young alchemist was free to undress and sink into the wonderfully hot water with a heavy sigh of contentment.

Death threats aside, he could get used to this life, he idly thought to himself as he once again returned to the top of the spire, much to the mage’s very verbal displeasure. His hope was that if he were conveniently nearby, he would be able to assist with some magical ritual. But no such luck, he found, as the hours passed and little was spoken between them. Finally, he broke the silence with one of his many accumulated questions. “Why don’t you eat?”

The answer came impressively fast. “Why don’t’cha **shut up**?”

Glumly, Rhys deflated and plopped his chin down on his fist while his companion cackled at the wittiness of his extremely rude rebuttal. He glanced sidelong at the robed figure from his position in a yellow cushioned chair pushed against the wall next to a floor-to-ceiling window.

No matter what, Rhys couldn’t catch a glimpse of the man’s skin to get an idea of what kind of creature he was. It seemed as if the Handsome Sorcerer’s face was always shrouded in a veil of darkness despite the amount of dusty light that filtered through the frosted glass or emitted from the torches. He wanted to assume he was a human, but such assumptions were dangerous in diversely populated Pandora, with its countless races and factions.

Wasn’t he supposed to be handsome? The name suggested so, and Rhys wondered why he kept himself draped completely out of sight in voluminous fabric.

Any of his curiosity collided with impenetrable walls, and it was painfully obvious that he was intruding on someone who hadn’t entertained guests in a very long time, if at all, and had forgotten the simple concept of manners. The only reason he was still encouraged to occasionally test his luck and probe for more details about the mysterious mage was because, despite multiple threats, he was still completely untouched.

Their relationship was cold and detached for the most part, not that Rhys expected a full royal treatment, having suddenly burst in on his home as he did. His alchemy skills had not been requested once, and it almost seemed like the Handsome Sorcerer had forgotten he even possessed them, which disappointed him. Rhys had been looking forward to having the chance to impress such a powerful being.

However, the next evening, all of that changed when the dynamic between them shifted the tiniest bit, resulting in Rhys discovering something new and startling about himself.

“Well, you look like you’ve got _that stuff_ handled,” the young alchemist announced with false cheeriness, cracking his stiff joints with satisfying noises as he prepared to retire for the night. His aching bladder demanding attention was what decided the hour had grown late enough. He had spent countless hours in his chair just watching the mage work, neglecting to take care of his bodily needs and simply marveling at the way his companion could just wave a hand in the air and create something from absolutely nothing, or so it seemed. Admittedly, he was almost sick with envy.

In alchemy, there were strict laws to follow to avoid personal injury. Most importantly, he had to sacrifice something in order to gain something else, taking care to balance the values, and not for the first time, he wished he had the ability to perform magic so frivolously.

With a final lingering glance, his eyes tracing the drooping curve of the Handsome Sorcerer’s hat while he buried himself in a tome heavy enough to crush a small animal into dust, Rhys heaved himself onto his feet—or he would have, if he had been able to move his body. He looked down at himself, puzzled, but no matter the effort he exerted, he could only manage to shift his knees. Even his hands were glued to the armrests, his back to the chair cushion behind him. When he lifted his chin and opened his mouth to speak, he noticed the eerie gaze was trained on him and stopped short.

“You stare at me a lot, kiddo,” he droned, straightening his back and crossing his arms. “So what’s the deal? Never friggin’ seen magic before? Got somethin’ on my robe? What is it?”

“No, no, your robe’s perfectly fine,” Rhys assured him. “It’s just that I don’t see magic much… or at all, actually. It’s, um, forbidden in my town.”

“It’s forbidden just about everywhere, genius,” he drawled. “But lemme guess… Patchy tunic reekin’ of poverty, aura of hopelessness, and a blank-eyed, judgmental stare. You’re from that trash heap Flamerock, ain’t’cha?”

“Yeah, that’s actually pretty accurate,” Rhys quipped with an affirmative bob of his head. “Although they _did_  discover a better way to deal with the garbage problem.”

A disbelieving scoff was his answer.

“So can I get up now? I really need to _go_ ,” he admitted sheepishly.

“I dunno. Can ya?"

"Yeah… I’m trying. Did you do something to me, like, with magic?”

“You didn’t see me do any magic, did ya?” The Handsome Sorcerer shrugged his shoulders and leaned his weight on his work table. “Maybe your pathetic little stick of a body finally gave out on ya.”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so…” Rhys fruitlessly flexed against his invisible restraints once again. “So, yeah. Seriously, can I leave now? I’ve really gotta pee, and I don’t think you want it all over your nice chair here. Not, uh, not that I’m judging or anything if you _do_. I just—”

“—Yeah, yeah. Surely an accomplished alchemist like yourself can think of somethin’,” he goaded, the smirk audible in his voice. “C’mon, stop bein’ such a waste of space and show me what’cha can do.”

“What— **what** **exactly** do you expect me to do?” Rhys sputtered with a hint of exasperation. “I can’t just twitch my nose and undo your magic! I need ingredients… and… and time—and my _hands!_ ”

“And I thought you were supposed to be resourceful. Alchemy isn’t for the incompetent.” He made a disappointed noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, and consider this your test. Impress me, and I’ll let’cha be my partner.”

“You’re not even letting me prove what I can do! Give me another chance,” he insisted, nearing a whine. The thought of becoming the infamous Handsome Sorcerer’s partner pleased him immensely, but he was just so goddamn distracted by his bodily urges. He squirmed, drawing his knees together in an attempt to suppress the ache in his bladder, as it was all he could do. “Please, I’m gonna burst.”

He was unsympathetic and responded, sing-song, “Tick-tock.”

“ _Please,_ ” he begged, growing restless in his discomfort. Sweat beaded under the hair at the nape of his neck and slipped down the back of his tunic the more he held the urge back, and a hot flush spread across his face at the prospect of wetting himself in front of the mage. “Please let me go.”

“Such a sweet tone,” the Handsome Sorcerer cooed meanly at him, “and manners, too, even towards a mage! Are ya sure we’re thinkin’ of the same Flamerock?”

“Yes!” he whined as the ache suddenly escalated, tearing an involuntary gasp from his throat at the urgency flooding his mind. “Yes! _Oh, god, **yes**_ , it’s the same one. _Please_.”

The robed figure neared his desperate form and stooped down, pressing his hands into the armrests and looming over him. The silky blue-gray of his sleeves tickled his hands. “Are ya gonna keep starin’ at me all the goddamn time?”

“No—no, no, no, I won’t! I’m not gonna stare!”

“Easy there, cupcake.” He snickered darkly. “Don’t _piss_ yourself.”

Rhys would have choked out a laugh at the absurdity, but icy breath suddenly hitting his cheek when the mage ducked his head out of sight and hovered near his ear had him sobering up at the intimate proximity, alert and anxious. The ghostly sensation wrenched a shiver from him, and he felt a prickle in his skin, a skittering, teasing spark of something that was undeniably pure and powerful _magic_ , with the mage’s scent tickling at his nostrils. It was strange—decayed flowers laced with a tinge of smoke. Its potency demanded his absolute attention, and he drank it in deliriously.

When the sorcerer pulled away, taking his intoxicating presence with him, Rhys drifted back to his senses and the unbelievable ache in his groin, and that’s when he realized with dismay and horror that he was hard. The tent in his trousers was all too obvious to the sorcerer’s unnatural gaze, and there was nothing he could do to hide it.

“Oh-ho-ho, you are **sick**.” The Handsome Sorcerer sounded absolutely gleeful at the discovery. “While that’s not quite what I had in mind, that’s still friggin’ impressive, I’ll give ya that. But hell no, that’s not gonna make ya my partner. Get outta my sight, ya freak.”

With that, Rhys was finally released from the chair, and he limped away as fast as he could to his room, utterly mortified and hands cupped over his groin self-consciously. His embarrassment, though, did little to stop him from guiltily taking himself in hand and jerking off messily after he had thankfully relieved himself at the toilet. He stifled his moans into his arm as if the walls were listening to his sinful act, which he thought was a fair assumption, considering.

Shortly after his shame had been cleaned up, much to his irritation and newfound disgust, he wasn’t the only one happily indulging, and no amount of pillows over his head could block it out. But as terrible a thing as angry dragon sex was, nothing compared to having to approach the Handsome Sorcerer with _yet another_ complaint, this time about the possibility of either sound-proofing his room or castrating his horny winged beasts.

Was the value of a death threat greater than the mortification of having popped a boner while he had been on the verge of pissing himself?

He would have to deeply ponder that.


	3. Three Steps to Immortality

* * *

 

_“Well, well, my little damsel-in-distress has a brain behind that vacant stare? Aw, but it’s tryin’ **so** hard. All right, tell ya what. Get those ingredients and show me it works… and I’ll consider somethin’ more… **binding** … between us.”_

 

* * *

 

> _'Immortality is based on the three principles of sacrifice, resolve, and fluidity. When considering what it means to be immortal, one must take into account the fact which dictates that loved ones will eventually wither away. The immortal, while impervious to aging, will know only death in his countless lifetimes. Thus, immortality is one-part sacrifice._
> 
> _The second principle can be defined simply by one’s desire to continue along the path while all others succumb to blissful, eternal rest. The immortal will dismiss the mysterious yet absolute concept of fate and defy all odds, no matter the cost, proving immortality to be one-part resolve._
> 
> _The third and final principle makes itself known once sacrifice and resolve have been successfully combined. The immortal will effectively become the fish which enters a stream—merely a silent spectator to its current inhabitants—until its path diverges, only to repeat the process anew in a consistent cycle. This deems immortality as one-part fluidity.’    —_ Henricus Fermanti, an excerpt of _Discovering the Beyond: Theories and Concepts_

 

* * *

 

After preparing a soup in his cauldron from some of the ingredients he had retrieved from the garden during his unfortunate excursion through the castle, Rhys took it upon himself to fully clean his new living space to keep himself occupied while he worked up the nerve to face the Handsome Sorcerer. He hadn’t heard from him all day, and considering recent events between the two of them, he was slightly hesitant to make the journey up the stairs to his tower. His reaction to being humiliated and bound, forced under the mage’s absolute will, had truly shocked him, and it felt as if something had broken within him, releasing pent-up feelings. Now that he had experienced it and realized how much it turned him on like nothing before, he couldn’t stop thinking about it—and how much he wanted **more**.

If only he could find the words or the courage to voice it, but based on the Handsome Sorcerer’s indifference to his impromptu arousal yesterday evening, he wasn’t completely convinced that his proposal of _something more_ between them wouldn’t be met with disgust, rejection, or amusement—or perhaps a frightening mix of all three. Frankly, facing off with a dragon had nothing on this. He had no reason to think the dragon wouldn’t eat him, after all, and no head games would be involved.

His thoughts soon returned to the partnership that had been dangled in front of him and then cruelly snatched away. If he couldn’t manage to interest the sorcerer sexually, then he at least wanted to work with him and see the extent of his magical ability. He could only imagine all the things he could accomplish with magic. The countless hours spent searching for and gathering ingredients would fade into the past as an unpleasant memory, and he would be able to discover countless new possibilities in a mere fraction of the time it had taken him alone. The thought simply thrilled him.

And if he couldn’t work with him… Well, truthfully, returning to Flamerock was the last thing he wanted at this point. It seemed entirely too dull in comparison to the few days he had already spent living with the Handsome Sorcerer, with all his secrets and intricacies at every turn. He wished to avoid that at all costs.

However, with the desire for a partnership in mind, Rhys had only one chance to impress the mage enough to solidify their partnership, that of his most ambitious project as an alchemist. He didn’t know if his current progress would be enough to satisfy someone as accomplished and powerful as the Handsome Sorcerer, but it was all he had. For the rest of the day hidden away in his room, he carefully gathered his thoughts so he could deliver them when the opportunity came, perhaps in the morning once he had a chance to sleep off his bothersome worries.

Sleep, he did, though restlessly due to the horrid noise just outside of the walls through most of the night—sleep off his worries, he did not. When he awoke, his insides still twisted anxiously, and his groin tingled with interest when he thought about the Handsome Sorcerer mere floors above him, most likely immersed in an otherworldly ritual of some sort that was far beyond his scope of understanding. Nonetheless, it was time to confront his intimidating housemate, consequences and conflicting feelings be damned.

When he poked his head into the circular, domed room, it quickly became clear that the events of a couple nights ago were no longer interesting enough to be brought up. In fact, his presence wasn’t even acknowledged, and as the silence stretched on and quickly became awkward, he fished for something to say.

“You know, I never told you my name,” Rhys finally began as a way to break the ice. “It’s, uh, Rhys.”

“ _Fascinating,_ ” came the uninterested drawl. Without even glancing up, the sorcerer waved his hand, clearly indicating the direction of the exit. He was poised with utter concentration, poring over a rumpled piece of parchment that was incomprehensible from Rhys’s distance away.

“Do you have a name other than ‘Handsome Sorcerer’?” he broached, oblivious to the mage’s desire to be left alone, or simply disregarding it for the moment. He had a mission, and he wasn’t leaving until he fulfilled it, even though the forced small talk was making him cringe inside. “I mean, if we’ll be living together, I think we should know at least a little bit about each other.”

With a low growl, the robed figure abruptly pushed away from his work table and stalked toward him menacingly, blue-gray robes whipping around his ankles and fluttering in his wake. He ripped the door open all the way and grabbed the younger man controllingly around the throat.

“Wait, _wait!_ I-I discovered a combination of ingredients that can increase one’s lifespan!” Rhys blurted out as he was shoved across the threshold of the door, tottering precariously on the top step. He clung to the doorframe with one hand and the sorcerer’s arm with the other to keep his tentative footing.

The Handsome Sorcerer eyed him with silent contemplation but made no move to allow the nosy alchemist to re-enter his room. “I’m listenin’.”

Being familiar with the concept of leverage from his days as the only competent cook in his town, Rhys knew that he currently held it over the mage, at least somewhat. It was clear the Handsome Sorcerer was interested, but the alchemist had no intention of revealing his secrets before getting what it was that he wanted, which was a rock-solid partnership bound in the form of an unshakable contract. He allowed the smallest hint of a smug smile to quirk his lips. “Let’s talk inside?”

He hadn’t planned to show his cards so early—but the thing about all-powerful magical beings was that they didn’t exist to cater to those who were clearly weaker-willed than they.

Rhys learned this lesson the hard way and quickly found himself dangling upside-down in midair. It was nowhere near as fun as it sounded, which was not at all, especially since it was off a balcony with his weight suspended by invisible hands around his ankles in the form of his companion’s magic. His throat was raw from his screaming, and it wasn’t the charming view of the valley far, far below him that was the cause of his verbal distress.

The most terrifying part was definitely the blue-tinted dragon clinging to the castle wall beneath him, swishing its tail back and forth like that of a scheming cat—or the pendulum of Rhys’s death clock. Its mighty jaws were parted, exposing more yellowed teeth with blackened gums than he could begin to count. It could almost be considered a comfort that the dragon was ready to catch him, should the Handsome Sorcerer decide he was no longer mildly entertaining, but marinating in its belly could hardly be called more attractive than plummeting from the clouds.

“ _I didn’t lie!_ ” Rhys wailed, high-pitched and panicked, barely able to hear himself over the wind rushing by and the pounding of his frantic pulse in his ears. “I just... I wanted some leverage! Can you blame me?!”

“See, that’s the problem right there!” the mage called back from where he was leaning on the balcony railing and calmly enjoying the rising sun peeking over the mist-shrouded mountains in the distance. “You thought you could control the situation, and that kinda pissed me off! You _do_ know who I am, right?”

“Yes, I... Just—just let me explain!” he pleaded desperately. “I’ll share my experiments with you! Please, god, let me _liiive!_ ”

Once again forced to beg for reprieve from another instance of the sorcerer’s cruel brand of humor, Rhys later found himself still struggling to reorient himself into a professional demeanor, as shaky as he was from his very extended brush with death and all the blood pooled in his head. He was trembling like a leaf in the autumn breeze, and he could still see those two serpentine eyes hovering in his vision like fireflies.

“C’mon, out with it,” the mage demanded impatiently from his lounged position in a high-backed chair—though it was more of a throne, really, conjured in an instant to serve as yet another reminder of who Rhys was dealing with in the event that his brain had leaked out from his nostrils.

There was no suggestion of a contract to be drawn up with carefully worded terms and signed in blood by the both of them to bind them together until death. Whatever illusion of leverage that had Rhys feeling so cocky had fallen from the top of the tower and smashed into a million pieces at the bottom of the rocky river that bisected the valley. He was thoroughly enlightened at this point and knew exactly who he was dealing with, but remarkably, he still wasn’t eager to leave his new home and return to the dull monotony of Flamerock. His blood was roaring through his body in a not-entirely-unpleasant way, leaving him feeling strangely excited.

“Can we have a contract? A blood contract? Just so I know you’re not gonna, you know, feed me to your dragons or anything after I tell you.” Then Rhys quickly added, “Please,” for good measure, since begging had rewarded him several times already in the past.

He was encouraged when the Handsome Sorcerer seemed to actually consider his request with an inclination of his hat-topped head. But it proved to be in vain when the mage simply shrugged and admitted, “Sure, I guess. But I don’t have any blood to sign with. So, uh, there’s that. Oh—and no urine, feces, or semen, either. Yeah, I know what kinda weird-ass thoughts are runnin’ through your head, kiddo.”

Rhys only sighed, long and suffering, at the sorcerer’s insufferable attitude and nonstop crude jokes and resigned himself to his fate. He had nothing to work with except to put his trust in the tyrannical overlord of Pandora, whom he had met only days ago. “Okay, so… yeah, I’ll admit my immortality mixture needs work, but I’ve definitely stumbled onto something. Er, maybe I should start from the beginning? It’ll make more sense that way. So it all started when Flamerock held its first drinking competition. Miss Moxxi from the tavern sent me out to the Immortal Woods to harvest some sleeping root to fix the contest—”

“—Shit, I’m bored already.” The sorcerer buried his face in his hands dramatically before rising to his full, intimidating height. “Just tell me the names of the ingredients and what'cha found out about ‘em. Goddamn.”

“It was a good story,” he muttered dejectedly, insulted by the abrupt dismissal. Exhaling, the alchemist glanced up at the Handsome Sorcerer, and he uttered two simple words, “Moonlit jade.”

The mage cocked his head to the side and regarded Rhys with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before beckoning with one gloved hand. One of his many tomes, with its spine crisscrossed with leather laces, obediently flew through the air and landed, open and waiting, in his palm. The pages fluttered wildly as if ruffled by a passing breeze before suddenly coming to a stop on a detailed illustration and a few paragraphs of handwritten text. He tilted the book in the young man’s direction so he could see it. “What, this one?”

Rhys drifted closer minutely, as much as he dared, so he could peruse the pages offered to him. His eyes darted over the illustration, with its every detail carefully depicted. He recognized the yawning tendrils and vicious-looking thorns—but most of all, he immediately recalled the first sample he ever stumbled upon, with its namesake cradled among its petals—a jewel-like bulb of the deepest green he had ever laid eyes on. With a faint nod of acknowledgement, he curiously turned his attention to the text, which was a slanted scribble on the following page. A few words stood out to him, such as ‘ _highly poisonous_ ,’ ‘ _blight of Pandora,_ ’ and ‘ _red-haired bitch_.’ He blinked in surprise at that, intending to go back and read more in-depth because several of those words simply didn’t seem to fit the subject, but the tome was withdrawn from his line of sight before he could make sense of it.

“Time’s up.” The Handsome Sorcerer snapped the aged tome shut primly and tossed it on his work table with a carelessness that made Rhys wince. “So, uh, yeah, I’m gonna need some clarification, cupcake. Just exactly how does that piece-of-shit flower have any value for immortality?”

“If you would’ve let me tell my story, all your questions would be answered right now,” he retorted somewhat snippily before he could think better of it.

The robed figure seemed less than impressed with his tone, and with a downward flick of his index finger, he buckled Rhys’s knees and sent him crashing to the marble floor with an audible hiss of pain. “Assmaster out there is still hungry. Keep that in mind, why don’t’cha?”

“Ow— _jeez_. You… you named one of your dragons… ‘Assmaster’? _Seriously?_ ” he sputtered, gingerly easing himself back to his feet. “That’s gotta be considered some kind of abuse.”

“I’ll have ya know I give my dragons’ names _a lot_ of thought. So when that great blue beast out there grew up and immediately humped every tail ‘round here that didn’t help birth it, the name just kinda came to me. There’s more meaning there than what you have, _Rice_. But, anyway, stick to the topic, ‘kay? I didn’t let’cha stay so you could interrogate me about meaningless crap all day.”

“Right. So, uh… can I tell my story?”

“Fiiine,” he huffed dramatically.

“ _Thank_ you.” Rhys paused, collecting his thoughts. “Like I said before, Miss Moxxi sent me out to gather some sleeping root so she could fix the competition ‘cause we had some rich outsiders joining in, and she wanted to win the betting pool. The closest spawn just outside of town was tainted by an overgrown patch of gnarled vine, so I had to travel farther to find more.”

“What, did she offer to show you her tits or somethin’? The, uh, tavern wench, Moxxi?”

Rhys blinked confusedly at the seemingly random interruption. “…Huh?”

“You’re really tellin’ me ya went into the friggin’ woods alone to help this chick win money—and you weren’t gettin’ anything out of it?” the sorcerer deadpanned. “Bull— _shit._ ”

“No, seriously,” the young man insisted calmly. “I was actually looking forward to seeing if anything new had sprung up in the forest since the last time I went through. It was always a huge source of my alchemy training because of all the different creatures that came through. Once I learned how to turn invisible, I never had trouble until I reached the Immortal Woods.”

When no scathing comments were given, he muttered, “I mean, it was _a little_ scary. It would’ve been nice to receive a little of the winnings for my trouble. Can’t exactly unsee all those skeletons wandering around like they aren’t supposed to be dead and buried in the ground.”

The Handsome Sorcerer suddenly glared down at him from beneath his hat but remained tensely silent, wordlessly encouraging him to get to the point.

“It was a full moon that night, and the light helped me find the sleeping root… as well as a flower I’d never seen before. It was twitching and about to bloom. It was just my luck that I happened to be inspecting it when its petals started to open,” he elaborated. “I only managed to get a pinch of its green pollen before it snapped shut on my fingers and broke them. _Reaally_ didn’t expect a flower to hurt so damn much.”

“‘I’m gonna just stick my fingers inside this thing I just found, even though I have no idea what it is,’” came the mage’s mocking, high-pitched and sounding nothing like the person it was directed at.

“Heh… Yeah, something like that. I didn’t become an alchemist just for show,” he pointed out ruefully. “I knew the risks, and I took them. And… well, things just got worse from there.”

“Ooh, ooh, wait! Lemme guess! You decided, ‘Hey, what the hell, it looks like food. I’m gonna eat it’?”

“I thought I had… a very resilient digestive system,” he defended weakly. “And I only tried a little bit. I didn’t know it was poisonous at the time, all right? I mean, yeah, the flower looked like it could suck my blood out through my skin, but I was keeping an open mind. I just thought it looked like it had some really interesting properties, and I had some ideas for mixing it.”

The mage snorted derisively.

“Nobody I described it to even knew what it was and told me it was just a weed. A week later, once I stopped shitting my intestines out, some traveling apothecary came by Flamerock, and the woman who owned it told me she remembered reading about something like it in a book when she was a kid. I had to save up for months to afford this book of freaking _fairy tales_ —the only thing around here that even mentions it, and it wasn’t even that helpful.”

“Well, uh, _duh_ ,” the Handsome Sorcerer snarked cruelly. “You’re askin’ a bunch of cross-eyed dumbasses who shit themselves and devolve a few millennia at the mention of ‘the unknown.’ You really think they’d know anything about somethin’ as powerful as moonlit jade?”

“You just called it a ‘piece of shit’ a minute ago,” Rhys pointed out. “Suddenly it’s powerful?”

“Moving on!” he declared loudly in a dismissive drawl. “C’mon, let’s wrap this up. I’ve got an inbred fuckwad of a king to assassinate, and I’m really, _really_ lookin’ forward to learnin’ the shade of his blood—spilled all over his ridiculously expensive golden sheets.”

The alchemist swallowed his niggle of horror and continued rather shakily, “S-so, uh, the book had this section in it about a flower that could only be seen under the full moon, and it only opened for a couple of seconds. ‘The deepest of green eclipsed by the void of the abyss,’ I think it said. Kinda dramatic, but it’s, you know, a fairy-tale book. That’s where I learned its name… from a little tale about a dying prince who wanted to cheat death so he would be able to find his soulmate.”

“Oh, _how sweet_ ,” the robed figure cooed meanly. “Think I know how that one ends, cupcake. She was either hideously deformed or cursed in some way. But ‘love conquers’ and all that shit, right?”

“Actually, his soulmate was, um, another man. It surprised me, too.” Rhys smiled somewhat bashfully while his companion merely rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “Anyway, that led to some research into immortality… which led to even more research after that, and I finally had a good idea about my life project. Had to borrow a lot of books, do a lot of favors, spend a lot of hard-earned money—but, well, here I am.”

“Here you are. And the other ingredients?”

“A faded phoenix feather from an exotic trader who wanted a date with Miss Moxxi and one of my standard bases for my potions—simple spring water and pixie dust,” he spouted in a rush, wary of the undertone of warning in the Handsome Sorcerer’s voice.

“Welp, lemme stop ya there. There’s better shit out there that’cha could’ve used. Faded phoenix feather? They come, uh, **fresh** , ya know. And pixie dust is the third-removed-cousin-that’cha-try-not-to-make-eye-contact-with-at-family-reunions of solvents.”

“I couldn’t afford anything better.” He shrugged helplessly with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m a tavern cook—er, _was_. They probably replaced me already. But did I mention I couldn’t afford a children’s storybook for months? The inflation everywhere outside of Flamerock is pure insanity.”

“You idiots pretty much just trade feces back and forth,” the sorcerer agreed disdainfully. “God, I hate that place so much.”

Rhys delicately cleared his throat but refrained from commenting. Wages in his town were basically shit, so it was an appropriately apt metaphor. “So once I had all three ingredients, I needed something I could test it on, and there’s only one creature within walking distance from Flamerock with a solid lifespan I could monitor the results on—the dragon gnat.”

“A good ten minutes if it doesn’t get eaten first,” the Handsome Sorcerer interjected thoughtfully with an approving bob of his head. “Go on.”

“I got really sick from the stings a few days later, but I managed to harvest a few eggs to test the mixture on,” the younger man recalled with a shudder, his mind briefly taking him back to the moment he was describing, when he ventured closer to a dragon gnat nest than he had since he was a child. The angry buzzing had shaken him to his core—a small insect shouldn’t be able to produce such a frighteningly loud sound, but its species wasn’t named from the mighty dragonkind for no discernible reason. “I coated the eggs in my immortality serum and waited for one to hatch. I lost a lot of sleep and couldn’t leave my house for almost a full day. But when the time came—”

“—It lived longer than ten minutes?” he interrupted impatiently, but there was an undeniable hint of interest.

“No, the first one… er, died really early. It was diseased,” he admitted sheepishly. Before the mage could interject something undoubtedly sarcastic, he continued, “But that’s why I had more eggs, so I could do some more tests. The next couple gnats survived eleven minutes exactly.”

“Ooh, such badasses. The bards will sing hour-long epithets about ‘em at all the biggest mead parties.”

“It was worth it,” Rhys stressed firmly. “I’ve discovered the beginnings of the recipe for immortality, but I just need to experiment with the individual ingredients a little more to make it, ah, permanent.”

“You peasants are just full of surprises. Next you’re gonna tell me you learned not to mate with your livestock.”

Ignoring the jab, he met those glowing eyes steadily and lifted his chin. “The concept of immortality has always been based on three principles: sacrifice, resolve, and fluidity. I created my mixture by following them. You see, moonlit jade is poisonous and even fatal in large doses, while the phoenix feather balances it out. Add a liquid base… and you’ll live— _heh_ —ten percent longer.”

“Well, well, my little damsel-in-distress has a brain behind that vacant stare? Aw, but it’s tryin’ _so_ hard. All right, tell ya what. Get those ingredients and show me it works… and I’ll consider somethin’ more… _binding…_ between us,” he purred, placing meaningful stress just **so** , which had Rhys’s mind reeling with the possibilities behind its intended meaning. “Sound good with you?”

The alchemist didn’t think about how he was going to obtain the ingredients with zero planning and the full moon only a few days away—or if he could recreate the mixture perfectly to achieve the results he was hoping for. He didn’t consider the countless dangers waiting just outside of his gilded castle home and lurking between him and his objectives. And he certainly didn’t consider any sinister undertones to being bound to a ruthless mage. All that was on his mind was that he would do whatever was in his power to grant himself the opportunity to impress this mystifying being—the Handsome Sorcerer, with his fiery blue eyes and cocked hip challenging him to rise to the daunting quest; a shadowy enigma he was determined to solve.

Of course, it helped to boost his self-esteem that, even after his little _faux pas_ a few days ago, he still seemed to be interested in a partnership between the two of them. His decision was obviously already made for him.

“I’ll do it,” Rhys spoke without hesitation, taking the slightest step forward toward the ever-present crackle of magic in the air surrounding his companion.

“Attaboy,” the robed figure praised, the smirk audible in his tone. He made to turn around and return to his work, but he was stopped when Rhys quickly reached out and placed a hand on his sleeve. Glancing down at the offending limb, he crossed his arms expectantly.

“But… something’s kind of bothering me. If you really don’t have blood, then you’re not living... and therefore already immortal, right?” Rhys inquired slowly, struggling to fit together the few pieces he possessed. “Why do you care about it?”

“Why do I care? It’s simple. As long as I live, kiddo, there’s always gonna be someone who wants to live longer. I just gotta beat her at her game.” With that, he rudely ripped his sleeve out of the young man’s grasp and finally turned his back on him. “And who said you’re right about your assumptions?”

The baffled alchemist opened his mouth to continue the perplexing conversation, desiring immensely to learn more, but an invisible hand abruptly shoved at him until he skittered backwards toward the door. He just managed to catch himself on its frame.

“Now, get out, and don’t’cha _dare_ come back until you’ve got somethin’ to impress me with,” came his suddenly icy order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Update (March 14th, 2017):** I haven't forgotten about this story. Unfortunately, I've lost a lot of interest in the fandom and moved on to _Elder Scrolls Online_. I have the entire summary already typed out for the next chapter, but I just need to find some time and motivation to sit down and flesh it out. Thanks to everyone who has found this story and left feedback in some way, be it kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, or comments! It means a lot.


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